We all know that climate change is the biggest challenge facing humanity. Well, we know that some deny it, but for the purposes of an OpEd it is always best to make some big generalisations. More likely to get the clicks. And Lord knows the almighty click is what matters. 

Anyway, anybody who pays the slightest attention to the media can’t have missed COP26, and even if that particular event wasn’t on your must-watch list, the efforts by scientists, the media, celebrities, and even our own Royal family in recent years mean that most of us have a basic understanding that burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and other human activities are having a negative impact on our planet. 

While we are now thinking about how we can switch to green renewable energy, how we can switch to an electric car (they may not be perfect but electric cars are cleaner than your petrol driven jalopy), and if we can reduce our meat consumption, how many of us stop to think about how our increasing Internet usage impacts the environment? 

Not many I bet. 

And yes, the irony of me using the Internet to send a message about the carbon impact of the Internet is not lost on me. But carrier pigeon dispatch to the millions and millions (more likely dozens if I’m lucky) that will read this just isn’t feasible. Plus I wouldn’t have any data to show that my efforts had had any effect. Pics or it didn’t happen etc. etc. 

Do I emit carbon emissions surfing the Internet? 

Of course you do. And you know that. The problem is we often don’t stop to think about it because the carbon impact of the Internet is perhaps less obvious than that of the aviation industry. 

And in fact according to some estimates the Internet pumps out a similar level of carbon dioxide as all those airlines we need to use less.

The Internet accounts for about 4% of all greenhouse gases. That is a pretty sizeable chunk. And what is more worrying is, it seems, that figure will only go up. After all we’re heading to the Metaverse aren’t we, bathing constantly in a virtual world of pixels (both visual and tracking)? That takes a lot of data.  

Well, perhaps time will tell on that one, but regardless of whether you’re sold on the idea of sliding into a Matrix-like dystopia spun as a wonderful new dawn for humanity, the fact is that websites are getting more and more energy intensive. 

The average data size of a webpage in 2010 was 500KB, it is now 2MB. And that is only going to increase as demand for more and more images, videos, and fancy digital experiences, increases. Streaming of video is the biggest single data drain, so as you binge Netflix have a think about that.

Fallen in love with crypto and blockchain? Just know that the carbon emissions for a single Bitcoin transaction is the equivalent of watching 158,708 hours of YouTube videos. But remember folks, Bitcoin made Mrs. Smith from the valley just over from you rich beyond her wildest dreams. So roll on up and get your Bitcoin here. 

So yeah, we all have a digital carbon footprint. And a pretty big one at that. 

How can carbon emissions be reduced?

Outside of the Internet, you’ll have heard many of the steps you can take to reduce your overall carbon impact: drive less, fly less, eat less meat, switch to an energy supplier who uses renewables and so on. And this reduction approach is at the heart of limiting your digital carbon footprint too. Search less, scroll social media less, watch less sub-par Amazon Prime originals. You’ll reduce your digital carbon footprint. And you might feel a bit happier in general too. 

We had a look at our own website recently, and rather embarrassingly for a brand that is all about Digital For Good…our website is pretty dirty. Actually, it’s filthy. 

Rather than being ashamed of this though, as an agency we want to lean into this, face up to the mess and do something to sort it. So we’ve been putting our heads together to see how we can change our website to make it less carbon intensive. 

On the way we’ve discovered some interesting things about what can be done to reduce a website’s carbon emissions. Here are a few highlights if you’re interested: 

• Switch to green hosting – The data centre that hosts and serves up your site is a massively energy intensive beast. Many providers (including Google) use green energy. Some others offset. And others seemingly don’t give a shit. You can find out more about sustainable hosting, and see if your site is on a green host here.
• Limiting or modifying images – Images account for quite a bit of data, so reducing their size, removing them where they are not necessary, and making sure they are in modern, efficient, formats like SVG all helps.
• Being careful with video – As I mentioned earlier, video is an extremely carbon intensive media. So limiting the amount of video you use on your site, and ensuring it doesn’t autoplay, is a good idea. In fact, consider if you really need a video at all. Does anybody engage with it? Is it really useful for your users? If not then you could replace with images, text…or just not bother having anything there at all. 
• Fonts have a surprising impact – This is something that I never could have believed (perhaps showing a gap in my technical know how) but using system fonts over proprietary, or even Google web fonts, will both speed up your site and also reduce carbon impact. 

Now this might all sound like you’ll end up with a delightful lofi experience like this one but that’s not what I’m saying (although please do check out that site, and marvel at the true essence of what a web page is underneath the JavaScript and videos). There is, as with everything, a middle path to take, a balancing act that will be slightly different for each brand. Some sites will need video to do what they need to do. Others will need plenty of images. But savings and improvements can be made elsewhere. 

During research both myself and the team found many examples of modern, beautiful websites with plenty of cool design flourishes that came out pretty clean when we investigated their likely carbon impacts. 

So it’s not an all or nothing proposition. Anything I have said that seems extreme is just to provoke anyone reading this (Hi Ed!) to challenge some assumptions they may be making. 

We don’t have to switch off the Internet. Or turn all our websites into text only pages like those that Tim Berners-Lee used to knock out before the web exploded. But we can all do things a bit better. And isn’t it time we tried? Start by putting your website through our carbon calculator.

To find out how we’re going to clean up our site and reduce our digital carbon footprint check out our Green For Good Pledge here.